IS 111
YEARS OLD!
AND SURROUNDED BY MYSTERY! The mystery began in 1988 when the fan turned up at an estate sale in Rutherford County Tennessee. The Tennessee farm home was being vacated by the Elmore/Lytle family who had occupied it for eighty-eight years. Many old and curious things were on sale that day but nothing quite as puzzling as this fan.
Lila Coley, granddaughter of these Elmore's, attended the sale. As she wandered aimlessly through the house mourning the loss of so many precious family treasures she spied a woman standing in the middle of the floor examining a beautiful folding fan. Suppressing an impulse to take the fan from the woman and tell her that it was not for sale, Lila stood motionless staring in awe at the fan. Standing there trying not to stare she sent telepathic messages to the woman ordering her to, "put that fan down." The stranger looked squarely at Lila for an instant then slowly put the fan down and moved away.
Lila snatched up the fan and discovered, to her surprise, there were eleven names written there. Names that were vaguely familiar. One woman and ten men had signed the fan and dated it 1895 but the most amazing thing written on the fan was, "Grapevine, Texas." Now — Grapevine, Texas, is 800 miles away in Tarrant County Texas. This must be a mistake or some kind of a joke because the Elmore/Lytle family had no known connections in Grapevine in 1895 but in 1988 Lila lived 4 1/2 miles from this city of Grapevine. Some names on the fan are familiar because they are families who played a prominent roll in the early history of Grapevine. Names like Estill and Terrill. The fan is believed to have belonged to Kate Estill because hers is the only female name written there.
The stage is now set for an extensive search of family histories looking for a connection between the Estills and the Elmores or Lytles. There must surely be a connection but years of research turned up few clues. It was learned that Kate Estill graduated from Terrill College at Decherd, Franklin County Tennessee, in 1896 and that William Lytle attended The University of The South near Sweanee in Franklin County Tennessee, during 1896. William's younger sister, Mary Locky, was the same age as Kate but it is not known for sure where she went to school.
A transcript of the writing on the fan reads: Note - the dates are 1895
Kate Estill — Grapevine, Texas
James J. Terrill — 6/12/95 — Denton, Texas
D. M. Lipscomb — 6/12/95 — Grapevine, Texas
W. H. Jones — 6/12/95 — Singleton, Tenn
Jesse P. Miller — Hillsboro, Tenn
Louis Ratliff — 6/13/95 — Hillsboro, Mo
"Bill the Deacons boy"
Bob Crisman — Danville Ill
Frientje Heinkens — Decherd, Tenn
Lee Neal — Rowland, Tenn
Georgie Bennett — Chattanooga, Tenn
The bride got left
but it was not the
"parson's" fault
Tom Belcher — Walling, Tenn
This old fan was without doubt a precious keepsake for someone and the events that brought it to Grapevine seem to prove we are indeed all neighbors.
It has been suggested that the fan might be a dance card from Kate's school days in Tennessee and that she left it behind when she returned home to Texas. She possibly left it there for her friends in Tennessee to remember her by. This leads one to wonder if there was another fan, one that Kate brought back to Texas to remember a Tennessee friend.
Whatever the true story, there is strong evidence of a connection between the Estill family of Grapevine, Texas, and my ancestors in middle Tennessee. Could this explain why of all the places I ever lived I feel most at home in Northeast Tarrant County?
In 1988 the 105 year old fan traveled the nearly 800 miles from near Eagleville, Tennessee, to Texas and on February 28, 2000, it was presented to the Grapevine Area Historical Society and is presently on display at the Grapevine Depot Museum.